Sunday, December 8, 2013

Cotton Ball Snowman Craft for Toddlers

 

The kids always get excited when the craft materials come out! I'm thrilled I can keep things this simple and still entertain them. Hopefully it lasts quite a bit longer!

With cold weather setting in and Christmas coming up, we decided to make some snowmen last week.

I grabbed three items with different circumferences, and used those to trace three circles on each piece of paper. I ended up using a plate from the kids' play kitchen, an empty 16 oz peanut butter jar, and an empty 32 oz peanut butter jar (What can I say? We like peanut butter!) They ended up making the perfect sized snowman! I added arms, and we were ready to go!

The kids started by coloring their snowmen. That's always their favorite part of any craft!
When our snowmen were thoroughly colored, I brought out the gigantic bag of cotton balls that I picked up at the store. The kids thought that the texture was really fun! I love seeing common objects through the eyes of my kids. It gives a totally different perspective on things.
Then I let them use a glue stick on the inside of each circle.

Side note: Whoever invented glue sticks was a genius!

And then the kids pressed cotton balls into each circle to make them snowmen!
They kept gluing the cotton balls down, then pulling them back up, then gluing them down again. So...I guess that's like doing the craft several times over? *smile*

After gluing (or removing as the case may be) the cotton balls, we glued on an orange "carrot" nose, and a happy smile!
And since no craft project with quadruplets is complete without something unexpected happening, I turned around to find this going on behind me:
Caleb had left the table while I was working with Ellie, and proceeded to fling cotton balls all over the living room. That's a brand new bag of 500 cotton balls, in case you are wondering. They definitely know how to make the most of mom's turned back!

I picked up all of the cotton balls before they could be distributed throughout the house, and went back to the table to find this: 
Abby was steadily munching on cotton balls. Is it just me, or does the thought of that make your teeth hurt???

Now you know why I try so very hard to stick to simple crafts! *grin*

This is what we ended up with at the end! Hehe! You can definitely see the personalities of my kids in their snowmen. Abby likes crafts, but gets distracted. Elijah wants to do it all by himself, on his own terms. Caleb doesn't like to do crafts after the coloring is over. Ellie wants to get everything just right.
From left to right: Abby's, Elijah's, Caleb's, and Ellie's Snowmen



Regardless of how each snowman turned out, I think working on crafts like this are really good for encouraging development and creativity in children. And they feel so proud of their work when they are finished! I guess it's obvious that I'm a proud Mommy too!

6 comments:

  1. Adorable! And oh dear Abby, I know it looks like cotton candy but totally not the same thing! :)

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  2. I had to LOL at Caleb strewing the cotton balls everywhere. That's what my Brady would have done (he always hated coloring, even at that age! Still does at 8!). So cool they each have such unique personalities that show in their work. Very cute craft! And we eat lots of peanut butter too :)

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  3. Thank you! I'm doing this with my son this week:)

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  4. Ahh! You have your own little preschool!
    --Gena

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  5. adorable and very easy for kids to manage on their own. will have to add this to my "snow day" idea list.......and buy cotton balls. lots of em. LOL

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  6. Such a cute idea. Glad to see the kids enjoyed it.

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